Expedition 5

Louis Nethercott and Anthony Lambert want to cross the world’s five biggest islands to raise awareness of the mental health issues facing military veterans.

Alongside other essential supplies the former commandos will count on Inmarsat equipment to stay safe and connected while their endurance challenge takes them off the beaten track.

Expedition 5

Louis Nethercott and Anthony Lambert want to cross the world’s five biggest islands to raise awareness of the mental health issues facing military veterans.

Alongside other essential supplies the former commandos will count on Inmarsat equipment to stay safe and connected while their endurance challenge takes them off the beaten track.

Two men. Five islands. One aim.

Louis Nethercott and Anthony Lambert served together as Royal Marines Commandos in Afghanistan in 2011 where they were involved in fierce combat.

Now, they aim to put their training to use in Expedition 5 – setting a new world record for crossing the five biggest islands on Earth, unsupported and only using human power.

Louis was medically discharged due to post traumatic stress, and developed the challenge with his friend Anthony, as a way of raising awareness of the mental health problems faced by military personnel.

The veterans began their record attempt with a gruelling 40-day, 870 mile (1,400km) trek across Borneo in November-December 2016. In April-May 2017 they took on the jungles, swamps and crocodile-infested rivers of Papua New Guinea, finishing up the year in Madagascar, where desperately short water supplies made their 405-mile (653km) march particularly brutal. In 2018 they swapped the heat of the jungle for the debilitating cold of Greenland in a 350-mile (565km) journey across the ice sheet. They evaded the polar bears but nearly fell foul of a hidden crevasse.

Which just leaves Baffin Island, the largest island in Canada, as the final frontier in 2019.

Connectivity wherever and whenever

For much of the time, the two men will be isolated, coping with extremes of temperature and terrain – jungle, desert, mountains, rivers and ice caps.

Anthony and Louis will be carrying all the essentials for each trek in backpacks weighing up to 35kg.

Along with food, water, shelter, medical supplies and clothing, they will be packing an IsatPhone 2 satellite phone each and a compact IsatHub terminal to use with their own smartphones and apps.

The robust IsatPhone 2 handset has been engineered to cope with the extreme conditions they will experience along the way, and offers unrivalled battery life, excellent voice clarity and the reassurance of operating over the reliable Inmarsat-4 satellite network.

This essential satellite communications kit will mean they can alert the authorities in an emergency, conduct media interviews, update social media and their website with reports and images, and also keep in touch with family and friends back home.